About Martin Amini.

Martin Amini is a stand-up comedian based in Washington, DC who has spent more than a decade building a reputation as one of the most engaging live performers working today. He is best known for his crowd work — an improvisational style of comedy that involves the audience directly, asking questions, finding threads, and pulling something true and funny out of the real people in the room.

The nickname The Cupid of Comedy didn’t come from a marketing team. It came from the shows themselves — specifically from the recurring phenomenon of Martin introducing two single audience members, creating a moment between them, and then hearing weeks or months later that they were actually dating. Or, in more than a few cases, that they were now married.

This is the specific territory that distinguishes Martin from other comedians: he doesn’t just make audiences laugh together, he makes them connect with each other.

Martin’s father Hassan Amini emigrated from Iran to the United States and built a life driving an ice cream truck through Maryland suburbs. The specificity of that origin story — the immigrant father, the ice cream truck, the suburbs — became the foundation of Martin’s first major special: Son of an Ice Cream Man, performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

The Kennedy Center performance was a landmark moment. It established Martin as a comedian with a real perspective — not just a collection of jokes, but a coherent point of view about family, culture, belonging, and what it means to grow up between two worlds.

His second special, I’m Transcending, was recorded at Lincoln Theatre in DC and continued this evolution, pushing deeper into the relationship material that would eventually make him a viral presence on social media.

Martin describes his approach as Wholesome Homie comedy — a way of being funny that doesn’t require cruelty, shock value, or punching down. It’s a philosophy as much as a style: that you can find honest, funny truth in relationships, family dynamics, and human behavior without making anyone feel attacked.

This is why his shows work for mixed audiences — couples on dates, groups of friends, people who don’t usually go to comedy shows. The material doesn’t require familiarity with a specific cultural reference or tolerance for a particular kind of edge. It requires only being a person who has relationships with other people.

Martin is currently on a Live Nation theater tour with dates across the United States and internationally, including London, Sydney, Toronto, and more. The tour represents a significant step up in scale — from comedy clubs and small theaters to full-sized performing arts venues.

The shows are selling out. If you’re considering going, the best advice is to buy tickets as soon as you see a date near you.

See all tour dates →